Guild Wars 2

Let me describe 2 specific instances in zone one where I feel a mechanic did not fit with normal mode.

At the geysers, if you are jumping off one as it disappears, it will knock you back mid air. For a long time, I thought it was the flying fish that I just couldn’t see, but after 20 or so tries, I figures out what the real issue was. Even after that getting the timing right felt really random. Something this unituitive i only expected to find in tribulation mode. If you could make it so the only time you get knocked back was when you hit the “groundlevel” water, not mid air as the geyser disappears, I believe that would eliviate most of the frustration with this part of zone one.

Second, the flowers. Specifically the one right before the final boss. I only died twice to the boss himself, both of those were simply learning that I couldn’t single dodge through his lazers – fair enough. I died at least 10 times to the flowers – jumping very consistanly, but being thrown too far or too short. I remember there was some to-do when this mechanic was introduced in the aetherblade jumping puzzle, and I was surprised to see it here. It’s an interesting idea, but any amount of lag makes it unbelievably frustrating. I don’t know if it will ever work well in this game engine.

Overall I enjoyed zone one, but those two aspects specifically really colored the experience for me.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Not to minimize your complaints but here’s my take.

1. The zones are too long

You are complaining about too much content.

2. Jumping on a flower can throw you into another flower and kill you

You can be more careful about the direction you are facing when you land on them.

3. Crocodile hit boxes are too little

You need to use tactical stratagy to find the spots to hit the from, just like old platform games.

4. Too many enemies on all maps

Learning where enemies are and how to thwart them is part of the process of progressing in old platform games.

5. World 2 spike traps are not fair, especially when you get to places where there are lots of cheap ones.

They are all visible. The darts shoot out of dart boxes. The assassin training grounds are meant to teach you to carefully observe your surroundings.

6. World 2 does not have nearly enough checkpoints and repeating the gong run is painful

The gong run is painful. I’d like to tap that difficulty spike down.

7. World 2 – bringing the fish from the fountain, up the temple – too difficult due to lots of cheap spike traps

Not sure what you mean here. If you are talking about the dart traps, there are none in the fish temple.

8. World 2 – clouds are invisible unless your brightness is at 0.

I’ve tested on a variety of monitors and haven’t seen this problem.

I could go on and on and on. Normal mode was made far too hard.

You may be right. I think it’s too early to tell. Some number of people hit a little resistance and quit and come to complain about it. And some number hit that same resistance and are inspired to overcome it and they are in the game right now doing that. I don’t have a good sense of those numbers are right now. I’m more than happy to adjust it when I have better data to work from. Thanks for your feedback.

All that feedback leads me to the same conclusion that’s been mentioned numerous times before: This is content that was pushed out without being properly beta tested.

I’m really curious if SAB was thoroughly tested with a Norn or big Charr. In fact, I think it would make sense to exclude Asura during the testing process. SAB is significantly easier when run through using an Asura.

Check out this video from Wooden Potatoes.

He actually has alot of fun completing the first zone in tribulation mode.

Josh Foreman.8250:

DarksunG.9537:

I think you have misinterpreted what made SAB fun. It’s not the hair ripping “OG hard-coreness” it was cute fun puzzles with occasional tough jumping at a pace you can enjoy.

Well I don’t expect anyone to read this whole thread at this point so I won’t fault you for not having read the 20 times I’ve said I didn’t intend Normal Mode to be as hard as it appears to be to average players.

As to the pacing issue. What made you feel rushed? Is it the length of the levels? Or do you just mean specific timed puzzles like the rolling gong?

Sometimes for me what stresses me out is not REALLY being sure of where to go next.

I might see 2-3 what may be viable options… but since I just went through god knows what to get where I currently am, I’m not going anywhere with confidence until I consult a video, and while videos are super cool and useful, i’m sure you guys don’t intend to have people need to consult videos quite as often as I need to to learn a path.

I mean there’s always good old trial and error, but that’s REALLY frustrating, lol. Maybe it’s just me, but who knows. Probably not.

World 2 Zone 3 boss fight, sometimes resets when u die, and it sometimes doesnt even portal me to the spawn, but rather at the teleport thing.

It resetting makes it kinda hard to solo it, lol. Tho i did kill it in the end.

I would say that W1Z1 tribulation mode is easier then W2Z2 in normal mode. lol.

Ive died over 500 times i think, but still having a blast

Groonz.7825:

I’ve been a completionist from the start of GW2 completing all the achievements from the monthly/special themed contents.

But this. This is where it finally hit me. This one here is simply not fun at all.

The whole part about losing lives and eventually running out of coins where you either have to farm more coins or buy the gem coin to continuing trying.

Tribulation is just insane. It’s not fun or interesting, it’s simply sadistic. Also tying that with how you essentially need to buy the infinite coin to even consider trying it out is simply crazy. It would be the equivalent of ‘I Wanna Be The Guy’ getting players to pay $1 to retry every time they died but it doesn’t that’s why people can keep trying over and over.

Also if you try to throw out some analogy regarding old platform games and their difficulty, all I’d have to say is.

“I don’t recall my console/gameboy locking out the game cartridge after a month has gone by.”

Because of how GW2 is, it forces the player to do the current content ASAP before the month is gone and so is the content.

I even tried doing some of tribulation World 1 zone 1 while watching a youtube guide, while halfway in I just thought to myself “This is just stupid.” and exited while I was about 3/4 of the way to the boss.

I’m also really confused where they said that SAB would be fun and challenging like the Halloween Clockwork jumping puzzle. I loved that jumping puzzle it was the best experience I ever had in GW2 since then and most likely till the end of GW2 days. SAB doesn’t even compare to it at all.

I also wish you wouldn’t try to compare content with the Halloween JP, it’s always hits way off the mark. The Halloween JP was most likely a one time thing and GW2 got it perfect but you’ll never be able to match it with other stuff.

I don’t even know how this months content will even be remotely enjoyable to the average casual gamer. It feels as if this months content was designed for the hardcore sadistic players (whatever tiny percent that is).

It’s like dragonbash all over again where it kind of locked out new players because most of the content during dragonbash required large amounts of gold to take part and enjoy.

This is pretty exactly how I think. I loved the mk clocktower, it is the funniest thing I´ve done in this game. SAB is nowhere the same. When you died in mk clocktower, you knew it was because you did a mistake. This is pretty much the opposite and it is sad because I enjoyed world 1 too.

Nathanael.4398:

Btw. the music of SAB World 2 is released @ Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/arenanet
Thank you for uploading the music there in WAV and again thank you Josh for this great World 2!

Woot. Thank you guys for releasing these. Love listening to them. Brings back memories of old games.

(not sure if you control it in anyways, but when trying to play it as a group (?, when it has all six in one graph/whatever it is), it stops at Storm Top and doesn’t continue, had to click over into the next track, wizard of storms, to continue. It won’t play it when its all together. when I played Storm Top separately, it played.)

Still ppl qqing lol…

Just finished w2z3… Loved it. I love the puzzles and figuring everything out. The bully goats were pretty cool and now I want waffles!!!

Guys, it’s the first day of release…I mean, it’s here for one whole month. Keep trying until you manage, or, if you don’t like that, just don’t do it. Simple as that.
It’s a game, and SAB is just one tiny part of it.

To further illustrate the point : http://youtu.be/J9-aUFHIt7c

It’s not difficulty, it’s not even lag, it’s terrible detection. If Josh can watch this and claim everything is fine with the hit detection and the player was at fault in each case, then I really don’t know what to say.

One thing tho.
When we get to 0 Lives, and we go to the “Red room of Death” and we choose Infinite Continue Coin option, give us more than 10 Lives. Make it 50 or 25.

The only real problem so far is that the water spouts seem to have some problem with knocking you back randomly. You have to time a perfect sequence and not be looking at the water spouts, if I tried to jump by vision alone it looks very easy, but the water spouts appear but dont register landings and shoot you off. It can also happen in mid jump for some reason. Its something with the switching of the water spouts that are down that causes it. Other than that…this thing is brutal…but I love it. Well done, the difficulty is totally doable if you take 5 seconds and take a breather and think.

I re-ran some levels today, took me 3 hours again and 15 continue coins even though I knew what I was doing. Decided to photograph the perfectly visible clouds on a LED screen. It’s even worse on my BFs screen. The only way to get around invisible clouds is to turn gama to the lowest, but then the arrow traps are invisible. So I present to you the photo of “there are clouds out there!”

I don’t think it is too hard- but the levels are too big. Half the size would still be huge…

Magnetron.5823:

Check out this video from Wooden Potatoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqubbQfusKU

He actually has alot of fun completing the first zone in tribulation mode.

of cause he feels fun, because he gets a Infinite Continue Coin
keep dying is not a problem
but spending so much time/ many bubbles to get a coin, then u die in a second is no fun at all for a Infinite Coin free player

even Mario Cat has Infinite deaths, so u can keep trying to play it

Maybe Arena Net hired JIGSAW for SAB, they just want to play a game, a terrible one!!!

Just did a rerun of W2Z2. The first time I did it took a long time and was frustrating and extremely challenging. However, the second time I’ve run it, no problem.
People complaining about enemies are probably not paying attention seeing as you can see most of them a mile off. Learning the correct tactic to taking them down is vital in staying alive and they are EASY (Dodge assassin attack, whip, 2 hits, dodge, 1 hit) against 2 foes you can do the same and even bait their attacks and side step at the last moment. Ranged assassins are even easier once you have the old glove of wisdom.
The puzzles rooms are still difficult (block room/gong room) but it’s a matter of paying attention to your surroundings and making sure the area is clear before attempting anything.
I did run in to a couple of problems with the gong room seeing as there are a couple of transitions that are difficult but once you realise you don’t have to completely follow the gong, it became easier (You can skip some of traps by jumping them from the top floor).

If it weren’t for the gong room I would have done this in 3 lives. Simply put, practice does make perfect.

ps. And if you get on the shortcut eagle, it will cut out most of the level depending on how long you stay on.

pps. W2Z1, for people complaining about not being able to hit crocodiles, you have more than a stick and, if you don’t, go back and get the cata, whip and bomb, you are given multiple weapons for a reason.

I tip my hat to you Josh.

Thank you for making this hard. I can’t wait to complete World 2 and move on to the agony of tribulation mode!

I welcome anyone who is complaining to go play old games such as Ghosts n Goblins, Metroid, Zelda 1 & 2 which were VERY hard, and couldn’t be nerfed.

This really makes me want to blow the dust off my NES and fire it up for some Ghosts and Goblins nostalgia…Josh ,now I challenge you to make me a keyboard/mouse that is as virtually indestructible as the NES controller was!

rfdarko.4639:

To further illustrate the point : http://youtu.be/J9-aUFHIt7c

It’s not difficulty, it’s not even lag, it’s terrible detection. If Josh can watch this and claim everything is fine with the hit detection and the player was at fault in each case, then I really don’t know what to say.

Wow, just wow. That is worse than tribulation mode. At least there you know what killed you.
Bug testing with my coins is not something i want to do.

With all the latest content and bugs in it ANET needs to seriously rethink the 2 week release schedule or expand their QA team.

Awe.1096:

This is another thing which makes me think that bi-weekly content release makes the testing process… lacking. I mean, look at “that other game”. They have content on PTR for weeks or months and tune it multiple times in the process based on feedback. I miss that in GW2

So much this.

StriderShinryu.6923:

I’m guessing that you’re just using the term “jumping” as an umbrella for the entire SAB experience here. As many posters in this thread have stated, the problems don’t necessarily revolve around “jumping,” it’s more about the larger problems with design and the engine. Being really good at jumping in and of itself won’t help you with most of the complaints players are bringing forward with SAB World 2.

I certainly hope it’s just an umbrella statement because I was hoping for something to test my jumping prowess, but that’s a far cry from an overabundance of one-shot mechanics. (Agree with whoever said what’s the point of having hearts.)

Seriously, you guys need to step away from the Liadri mentality that instant kills — especially combined with the inability to see them very well (if at all) — is the only way to infuse “difficulty” into content.

For me SAB W2 isn’t as much hard as it is alil on the long side but I think that’s mainly cause everyone is new and still trying to figure out what to do and how trap mechanics work. But I wonder how people will feel if they do World 2 again after they know all the mechanics and where to go. I hope SAB doesn’t get a big nerf though cause I like all the challenges in it though them assassins are a pain lol.

The arrow darts did throw me off at 1st because I didn’t see them and didn’t expect to get 1shotted by them but that’s all the past now because I know what to look for now so at the 1st sign of death I can now warn my party about what to look for when they turn thru World 2.

As more people do World 2 the easier it will be to go thru it and eventually enough people will know what to do and how to avoid it that any new players shouldn’t die as much as the 1st time players did (like spending 2hrs at the giant waterfall without realizing u can jump thru a portion of it…). I say give it a few days if ur having trouble and wait for all them YouTube vids/walkthrough guides to help u through.

As for coin issues I didn’t have to many problems with it, I had 5 free they gave +3 from world 1. so by the time I got to world 2 zone 3 I was at 1 coin lol. lots of deaths but most of it on stupid stuff or I wasn’t paying attention to arrows.

Now for some Pro Tips for World 2 (Mainly My suggestions :P) :

1. Bring a Party with u—-More people with u, the more likely it is that 1 of ur party members will reach the checkpoint. Also helps when trying to figure out where traps/puzzles are because 5 heads are better than 1. ALSO u can learn from ur party members mistakes. When they die u just learned something new without having to die.

2. Slingshot is very handy— Take some time to get the slingshot to snipe some of the mobs that are in ur way. Aiming it isn’t the best thing in the world but it does help.

3. Walkthroughs/Guides will be online at some point— If ur really having trouble with it there will be vids and guides on this stuff soon (even for tribulation mode) so u can always check those out and guide ur way thru if u cant get thru it.

4. Farm World 1 to get baubles— World 1 is easy enough to solo on normal that u can almost just speed run it on ur character and alts to get baubles for things like shovel and slingshot. Also easy so u can buy coins for those times u die.

5. Make sure to get the 500 bauble Bag in World 1 Z3—- I wish I could tell u where exactly it is with pics or a vid but Google it and im sure u’ll find it cause nothing sucks more than having 250 baubles and un able to get more.

Wrote a lot more than I thought lol. Just some thoughts about SAB W2. Best way to get thru it is to stay informed and one u remember it im sure ur 2nd and 3rd play through will be easy and eventually u’ll see people doing World 2 speed runs lol

Completed zone 2 yesterday with some guildies, had a great time aside from some minor things.

As probably already noted, the rapids are a bit buggy at times, the detection sometimes triggers if you leap off a geyser which drops as you are jumping off, you will get “hit” midair and get washed downstream, even in parts where there are no fish.

Some of the assassin bits can be a bit rough solo, love the projectile reflection on the force palm, really adds another level to the play.

The part in 2-3 where you have the floor full of ice spikes and ceiling of stalactites you must shoot down. So many times you get to the top of a pillar to be rewarded with insta ice spike or banana mage attacks. Could just be a personal timing issue, but the splash area on those is pretty big.

Ice pyramid with the yeti, very frustrating.

Sometimes the piranha pools in 2-2 would take two lives away, did not try to replicate the issue but we had it several times.

Josh Foreman.8250:

StriderShinryu.6923:

I’m guessing that you’re just using the term “jumping” as an umbrella for the entire SAB experience here. As many posters in this thread have stated, the problems don’t necessarily revolve around “jumping,” it’s more about the larger problems with design and the engine. Being really good at jumping in and of itself won’t help you with most of the complaints players are bringing forward with SAB World 2.

Yes. That’s exactly correct, Strider. We are so used to the quirks of the engine, camera, etc. that they become almost invisible. I’m not trying to brag with that statement you quoted. Thanks for helping me articulate it better.

Oh, I certainly didn’t take it as bragging. It was more of wanting to be sure everyone was on the same page with where the actual difficulties/issues lay. In fact, as far as the jumping itself goes, I loved most of what was done in SABW2. That really long vertical shaft in W2Z3 (with that perfectly fitting music) or the final huge puzzle room before the boss were largely great examples of what SAB does extremely well.

My biggest issues, which I’ve already posted in this thread, can generally be boiled down to (from a non GW2 designers perspective anyway) where the game engine of GW2 runs smack into key elements of a platform game. Things like wonky collision detection (ninja attacks, falling icicles), weird physics (stomping goats magically pushing you around after knocking you down) and the occasional lag spike. I definitely appreciate the work you’ve done and are doing, and it’s not like SABW2 isn’r fun. It really is more like certain design decisions are acting like a focused spotlight that’s shining far too brightly on what GW2 can’t do well as a platform game as opposed to illuminating what it can do well.

Magnetron.5823:

Check out this video from Wooden Potatoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqubbQfusKU

He actually has alot of fun completing the first zone in tribulation mode.

I’ve watched about 20 minutes of that video.. and I think the biggest lesson I took away from it is:

If you want to attempt Tribulation mode, you better buy the store coin. Otherwise, you’re gonna have a bad time. And to me.. that’s pretty unfun design. :/ Tribulation mode actually looks like it could be entertaining, as long as you have that coin. I really don’t want to have to cave and buy it, but it’s looking inevitable.

rfdarko.4639:

To further illustrate the point : http://youtu.be/J9-aUFHIt7c

It’s not difficulty, it’s not even lag, it’s terrible detection. If Josh can watch this and claim everything is fine with the hit detection and the player was at fault in each case, then I really don’t know what to say.

That’s crazy. I’ve not set foot in this new SAB (got full achievements last time and thoroughly enjoyed it) but after reading this thread, blogs and that video.. I’m honestly not sure I want to bother.

You know the content is no fun anymore when you go to any server and see a whole hoard attempting it at release, and then check back and guest on 2 worlds and find it a literal ghost town a couple of hours later.

I’m not going to make a long post, but I would like to say a few words. I do feel that World 2 is significantly more difficult than World 1, to the point that as it stands now I don’t think most of my guild can or will want to try completing it. I am currently gathering baubles for the waterfall, so I can only comment on zones 1-2.

In zone 1, the only problem I had was with some very frustrating “warping”. There were a ton of times where I landed clean on a rock only to get thrown out as if I were hit by water. And yes, I am sure that I was on the rock, I have a good judge of distance with my character, but I guess you will have to take my word on it. The “rapid effect” was occasionally very buggy as well, showing me stopped against something for a few seconds, then I “warped” much farther down stream. At this point I just gave up the life.

Aside from those weird spots in the farthest rapids, I really enjoyed 2-1. Yes, it was harder, but for the most part it felt like fair hardness. My beef is with 2-2. First off, it was too long. It’s not that I don’t love the content, but the length of an individual stage directly correlates to the solid block of time you need to commit to it in order to beat it. It’s not the content as much as the inability to step away. When I got to the massive arrow trap pagoda with the gong, I was incredibly frustrated, but I was so far in that I couldn’t take a break, else I would have to do it all over again. It probably took me 2.5 hours.

Now, onto the arrow traps. I mean, first off, they were pretty frustrating, but I was able to accept that. Getting to the top of the pagoda felt good, and once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t that hard. So far, so good. That gong run though…. that was what took the cake. My biggest problems were that the hitbox of the safety area behind the gong was incredibly unclear, and due to the way that it sort of insta-rotated 90 degrees and you needed to switch sides, I ended up getting zinged on basically my foot at some of the junctures, even though as far as I could tell I should have been protected. The way that it did the instant 90 degree turns was extremely frustrating for me. Also as a side note the jump to get into the pagoda from the bottom was pretty obnoxious, but maybe that was just me.

Overall, it felt like fine design, but it felt like bugs or certain animations could make certain parts incredibly frustrating. The length is good from a content perspective (more to do), but frustrating from the fact that it is all-or-nothing, and the prospect of losing an hour or more of work when you really, REALLY need to take a break is kind of a pain.

Have to say that anything regarding hitboxes like landing on an area, getting hit or hitting something, is an inherent flaw in the game’s engine and probably could never be fixed without reworking a huge chunk of the game.

Its a twitch based game, without the twitch based mechanics or engine support.

Magnetron.5823:

Check out this video from Wooden Potatoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqubbQfusKU

He actually has alot of fun completing the first zone in tribulation mode.

Yes, he has the infinite continue coin too. I tried it without that, it’s just an huge pain.

That’s an interesting video by wooden potatoes, but it has nothing to do with the subject of this thread – which is the difficulty and/or glitchy nature of world 2 on normal mode, specifically zones 1 and 2. The merits of tribulation mode’s “trolling” level of difficulty is being discussed here – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/sab-bts/Tribulation-Mode-I-am-ready/first

After spending 3 hours yesterday getting all world 1 achievements for my friend, I found world 2 quite frustrating and on some cases buggy. There were multiple times when on zone 1 geysers I’d fell through it or the river pushed me back even if I got on top of the geyser. Also the whip is pretty much useless, it barely has longer range than the stick. I used bombs + slingshot most of the time.

World 1 I found enjoyable, and during April I kept doing the zones over and over, of course for weapon skins, but I also enjoyed doing them. On world 2, not so much. I won’t do any of the zones after (or maybe even before) I have all the achievements.

I like challenging stuff, I even have my Light up the Darkness achievement to prove that. The difference is, I didn’t find Liandri frustrating because of bugs or anything. I wanted to keep trying her because it was fun and challenging. And in the end when I finally killed her and got the achievement it was great. Even without the achievement it’d been awesome. Even after I got all the achievements I still kept putting my own “achievements” on Liandri, like using constant cripple or no endurance to beat her. Why? Because it was fun and challenging.

World 2 seems bit too difficult and the learning curve is bit too difficult from world 1. (PS. I tried tribulation mode on world 1, zone 1, I found it cheap and waste of continue coins, and reward would only be frustration and annoyance, so most likely won’t try it again.) Still I’m sure lots of people enjoy it and hope that they keep the difficulty, just like I hope would happen with Gauntlet bosses.

On positive side, the blockworld looks amazing.

I’m still stuck at World 2 Zone 1, it’s just to difficult. I almost reached the end. At the big waterfall where those logs are coming down. I just couldn’t jump over it.
So then I thought let’s do this in infantile mode. This time I could skip the waterfall, but then I had to use 2 flowers to reach the boss. I literally died 10 times in infantile mode at those 2 flowers. First you get shot to the second flower who instantly shoots you away when you haven’t even got the chance to turn around.
Conclusion: I lost 7 continue coins at only one zone!

Well, after spending some time on SAB I must say – IWBTG not the right direction. Not because it is frustrating (it really isn’t, you shouldn’t be mad or sad because of it, really), but because it shows every GW2 weak spot.
- Clunky controls. Jump doesn’t feel right, because there are 5 races with the same jump length and height.
- Slow and wrong animations. Sometimes you get stuck in 1 animation when you alredy do another one, that isn’t right also.
- Weird hit boxes. I can hit croco all the way across the map with the stick. Rocks in tribulation can hit me from crazy distance.
Most of run-and-hit moves have all 3 problems listed above.
- Lag. This one is terrible for arcade game. You think you hit a frog when in reality acid melts your face.
Don’t mind infinite coin at all, wish that was with me when I spent all my money at MSlug, lol.

My main complaint is that World 2 requires too many of the weapons from World 1 to complete.

Since the achievements are account-wide, I jumped into World 2 with a fresh character only to be stopped multiple times because I didn’t have the right weapon and that there was absolutely no way to progress without the right weapon.

Grinding, more grinding, more grinding, just to get the Candle, then the Slingshot, then the Torch.

I don’t remember there being any instances of a hard block in World 1 where if you didn’t have a specific weapon, you just could not proceed.

Great Tribulation Mode! I really enjoyed it.

Anyone else having issues with the Achievment “Tough Customer, World 1” ?
Just got 10/11 and i think i got all in my runs

My thoughts after playing W2 Z1-2 (Normal). First playthrough at http://www.twitch.tv/royblazer/b/456028865 (9:35)

-Rapids, oh god I hate rapids. Some of the issue was on my part, but it is really annoying and frustrating to get sent all the way back down the river and have to repeat everything all over again. I’d definitely prefer if they acted like poison, and if they slowed your movement down while you wade through it, over knockback chains.
-There needs to be more checkpoints, or perhaps put the checkpoints right before a difficult section where you know a player will die a ton. The gap between points is too large, and coupled with the zone length, it gets tiring. Having to repeat the same few things repeatedly isn’t particularly fun. Similar to what was said in this video: http://youtu.be/L4YBCt-1JNs?t=41m33s Watching the same thing over and over again isn’t necessarily entertaining. Playing the same thing over and over definitely starts to veer into not entertaining. Especially if it’s to get back to a difficult part you want to complete. We’ve passed the previous challenges, but we have to go through them again and again (upon death) if a checkpoint is further away.
-Why do the dart / arrow traps OHKO? Them doing damage and knockback would be enough for people to avoid them.
-The difficulty jump between W1 and W2 is drastic. I expected it to be harder, but not that much.
-That aside, because there are achievements, I will force myself to complete everything. Even though I want to ragequit and never enter World 2 ever again.

The maps are WAY to big, it should of taken 10-20mins per zone, this is suppose to be a ‘fun’ side-step away from normal gameplay. Zone 2 took 2 hours, and for what? 2 baubles, and a bugged achievement that didn’t reward it (still 1/3). That zone alone just killed every hope I had for this game. Yeah trib is suppose to be hard, but it felt like I was playing trib on normal mode there. it was tedious and VERY un-rewarding for beating it.

The problem I have with world 2 is the death rate is so much higher then world one.

In world one, plenty of difficult jumping puzzles usually ended with you falling to the bottom of the forest so you have to move back up and try again but without you losing a life. In world 2 most often if you fail, you die, end of story. Without the infinite continue coin, the experience is extremely stressful as your worried about losing your precious lives. There’s a reason Cat mario and I wanna be the guy don’t have live counters, they’re meant for you to try as many time as you require to beat them…. and try try you will.

I had the experience of a friend gifting me an infinite contuine coin in the middle of a play session of world 2-2, my attitude towards the game was night and day. Before every death was frustrating where as after I simply shrugged it off and attempted to get by those stupid dart traps again.

Honestly personally if you ask me, you should give everyone an infinite continue coin in the mail and refund anyone who bought one because it seems essential to both world 2 and tribulation mode. I’ve rolled my eyes in the past about people claim P2W but here it seems valid.

I’d like to know who thought it was a good idea to pay tribute to masochistic games like IWBTGG and BTR when you don’t have the engine to support it. Guild Wars 2 has very imprecise movement and incredibly wonky camera. More than half the jumps I’ve got my characters ’hind covering my entire screen.

Not to mention that the hitboxes are about twice as big as the actual models.
Triggering traps that shouldn’t have been triggered.

Hey Josh, could we get some titles for the tribulation mode, please? Like “Glutton for Punishment” or “Connoisseur of Pain”?
btw i love the box, thanks for making it

A title for tribulation mode would indeed be great. Finally, I won’t share the same title with tens of thousands of scrubs. Titles are meant to ‘show off’, so it makes sense that the hardest challenges award titles, and not the grindy ones only.

Gilgamesh.5796:

I literally died 10 times in infantile mode at those 2 flowers. First you get shot to the second flower who instantly shoots you away when you haven’t even got the chance to turn around.

Are you sure you’re supposed to land on the 2nd flower?

(You died 10 times for failing to observe. The flowers are not set up to kill you unless you want them to.)

Duncanmix.5238:

I think most of whine comes from younger generation that didn’t get to experience this type of game. Obviously there are few of older guys too, but I think you guys got carried by the moment.
For me W2 is by far better then W1. W1 was just too, you could run it in about 10 minutes. After day or two of W1 everyone was just farming it multiple times with alts, and super adventure box became super farming box.
W2 reminds me on old school games and really brings up those memories.

Well, let’s see. I had an NES for my first game system. I cut my teeth on Mega Man games, the original Mario trilogy, a lot of other less famous games that I’d probably have to dig in storage to remember the name of these days.

These days, one of my favorite games that does a hard, old-school throwback properly and still in an entertaining way is Super Meat Boy. I’ve played through it, love it.

I still think World 2 is both too difficult, and more importantly it is difficult for the wrong reasons.

1. First off, we’re taking an MMO engine and using it to do an action platformer. This is already going to cause design issues, as has been mentioned, even by Josh himself. The difficulty of the jumping needs to be toned down in Normal even if there weren’t other factors simply because the devs of SAB are making GW2 do things it was never designed to do. If you want pixel-perfect jumping, you need pixel-accurate controls, and this was not something that GW2’s developers had in mind on an engine level. The existence of Charr alone calls for more forgiving jumping.

2. Secondly, and this is I think another big reason for the uproar: Imagine having one of those old school ballbuster platformers, but you were only allowed to rent it for one month. After that, it will be taken away, and no one knows when you’ll be allowed to rent it again. Incidentally you’re also not a kid on summer break anymore. You can’t play for hours and hours on end every day until you master this or that part. You still play a decent amount, for sure, but you can’t do a marathon anytime you feel like it, and anyway that sort of amount of gameplay wasn’t healthy then and it’s even less healthy now for the average gamer in their mid-30s. The stated time constraints on how long we have to master this thing are another big reason why the level of difficulty is a problem. If SAB and its accompanying rewards were announced as a permanent feature, I bet we’d see far less complaints. They’d still exist, but October 1st wouldn’t be looming in the future and threatening to cut the whole thing off before we master the experience. There are very few complaints that the world’s jumping puzzles are too difficult when they’re permanent additions to the game that we can woodshed to our heart’s content.

The thing is, World 1 evoked the feel of old school games just fine…but it did it with aesthetics, music, and the fun aspects of old school design. Looking for secrets, exploration within a relatively simple medium, the coin-collection aspect of it, lots of little touches that gave us a fun taste of the old days without making us sweat blood for it.

World 2 as it was released focuses more on the face-bashing aspects of old-school design. That sort of thing really belongs more in Tribulation mode, something that a lot of the pro “hardcore platformer” posts seem to be forgetting exists.

*If you want to keep a hardcore, woodshed style experience, Tribulation mode is for you. For the rest of us that fall between that and the almost tourist-mode of Infantile (or at least how Infantile was supposed to play and did in World 1), Normal needs to be brought down to where it’s fun on its own merits, and not just for those who take fun out of bashing their face against a wall.

I will say that looking back on 2-2, the gong part is “easily” bypassed by a party, a fact that I did not consider when I was playing it/writing about it. Solo though it was INCREDIBLY frustrating. As an aside, I did Tribulation 1-1 and had a blast. Sure, it was death everywhere, but it didn’t feel like buggy death, it just felt like exploring the only safe way to go. I have nightmares about Tribulation W2.

Leablo.2651:

Are you sure you’re supposed to land on the 2nd flower?

(You died 10 times for failing to observe. The flowers are not set up to kill you unless you want them to.)

you can actually get stuck in a loop landing next to a flower, however computer still thinking that you landed on it and sending you to your death.

I think that a lot of people that are really complaining about how hard this is are doing it wrong. Simple as that. You’re not looking for the right places to jump from, you’re rushing jumps or you just have no patience.

If I had the software set up I would love to run a stream just to show how wrong you are. Wait till the walk through videos come out and follow them.

I’d really like to know what some of your tolerance level to difficulty is as well. I just did the rapids again, I fell 5 times. That isn’t a big deal. I have a feeling that for some people this is worth complaining about.

There is no insanely hard jumping, most of it can be done with little to no concentration, just run and jump.

The only challenge jumping wise I can see is in zone 3 when you have to climb up that really tall room. However with a little patience, taking your time, it can be done with little trouble.

I’m really tempted to get a stream going, It’s not too difficult.

Edit:

Also, Josh has already said he is working on a nerf. Are people not even reading the Dev responses anymore before posting?

I’m going to to go play it some more before it’s washed in tears.

Overall I love the design & the new mechanics (Zone 1 is amazing IMO) but definitely agree the zones are too big for being World 2, Zone 2 especially.

My biggest complaint about Zone 2 & 3 is a lot of times I didn’t feel like I understood what I was suppose to be doing or where to go.

In Zone 2 I had 2 cases of this:

• the Gong Temple – The Gong because I initially didn’t understand I needed to use it as a shield
• the Bell before the end boss – The Bell because initially trying the glove on the logs didn’t work (I probably wasn’t positioned correctly) & because of the the lack of Glove symbols on the logs made me question if that was what I was suppose to do at all

In Zone 3 the spot that stopped me completely was the room you have to jump upwards. I had to run Zone 3 on easy mode in order to understand the direction I actually needed to go and that was enough for me to figure out the rest but I could definitely see areas like knocking down the icicles being confusing since there isn’t a lot of direction given.

Lack of clear direction is definitely a fine design choice but the jump from World 1 to 2 in terms of the amount of direction being given is too great IMO.

Another problem I had was at least to me there seemed to be a ton more places you could jump to in World 2 which offered no way of getting back besides death. I honestly don’t recall any in World 1 (but I’ll have to check World 1 again to be sure) where as there are tons of them in World 2. Again another okay design choice but shouldn’t be so prevalent in World 2, IMO.

I wont rehakitten but Zone 2 definitely has too many enemies. Seriously that Gong Temple I would burn it to the ground, lol.

But with that said I am highly impressed with the new World and the new mechanics it brings. It is just amazing what yall are being able to put together with an MMO game engine and I’m highly looking forward to what’s next.

Is the gong run meant to be legitimately completable? Either mine was bugged or…

I tried being near the front, back, a second ahead, behind and even if I directly looked and stood in the middle of the gong, the dart trap on the 4th ramp down would just shoot through it.

The one time I decided to just die and catch the ending, I jumped through a dart trap and it did nothing. Since the gong was going through another trap at that point, I’m assuming you actually become immune to darts or they’re disabled when this happens. Maybe the gong’s path/animation is out of sync or something.

I wasted like 5 continue coins trying different things. An infinite coin or the return of 5 full lives when restarting would certainly make it a lot more fun. Considering w3-4 is in the future, an infinite coin sounds like a really good investment.

Mirta.5029:

Leablo.2651:

Are you sure you’re supposed to land on the 2nd flower?

(You died 10 times for failing to observe. The flowers are not set up to kill you unless you want them to.)

you can actually get stuck in a loop landing next to a flower, however computer still thinking that you landed on it and sending you to your death.

Hand-holding activated: You do not need to land anywhere near enough to the flower to get caught in it as a result of lag or any other non-gameplay issue.

My problems all stem from attempting it solo. Fighting assassins solo is a grinding experience. When I’m grouped up with guildies we can often kill them quickly, but when your fighting 2-3 of them alone its really hard to avoid taking damage.

It ends up being frustrating and tedious. With a group its much easier to deal with the assassin mobs.

Monkey Fritz.9052:

RvLeshrac.2673:

Duncanmix.5238:

I think most of whine comes from younger generation that didn’t get to experience this type of game. Obviously there are few of older guys too, but I think you guys got carried by the moment.
For me W2 is by far better then W1. W1 was just too, you could run it in about 10 minutes. After day or two of W1 everyone was just farming it multiple times with alts, and super adventure box became super farming box.
W2 reminds me on old school games and really brings up those memories.

Stop saying this crap. It does not. With the exception of some of the worst games of the era, no classic platformer, not even Pitfall, required pixel-edge-of-platform attacking and pixel-perfect jumping.

One of the alligators in SAB requires that you stand almost entirely off the level geometry in order to hit it, and there are several spots where you must stand in locations that are covered by rapids in order to make a jump, with no indication that these are actually safe.

I agree with this post.

In spite of peoples random attempts at remembering their childhood, I still play ‘old school’ games quite regularly. And the artificially inflated difficulty mechanics and pixel perfect requirements only exist in the absolute worst of them.

You had to learn what to do, and then you did it. That is “old school hard.”

It didn’t fail 4 out of 5 tries because the whip wouldn’t catch the hit box just right. You didn’t have to stand in mid air so the sling shot would hit the next turtle instead of repeatedly hitting the one you are already standing on. Falling in the water either killed you, or it didn’t. There was no random ‘will it send you half way back and then let you jump out? Or will it trap you in one spot while devouring your soul?’

W1 was a fun, colorful lighthearted and challenging homage. W2 could be but isn’t.
W2 suffers from the “Lets make it as hard as we remember those games being when we were five and sucked at playing video games.”

Sure, when I first played on my neighbors Snes, super mario world was hard and unforgiving. And when I tried to play Zelda on my best friends 64 and he had to help me through all the tough spots, it was sooo challenging.
But now they are just simple little games that, at most, take an hour or two to get used to them again. Then suddenly “This part was hard before? Took me like two seconds!”

Thank you. Thank you x 100. I cut my teeth in the 70’s and 80’s on the first arcade games and my Colecovision – I remember those games as either unforgiving quarter dumps or endless levels with no goals. I was a teenager when I got my NES, all these games that are being name dropped – Ninja Gaiden, Megaman 2, Metroid, Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda… I played them then and I still revisit them from time to time. I didn’t beat them all but I put a good number underneath my belt. Same with SNES and right on up to PS3 today – I’ve had almost 40 years of being a “girl gamer”.

So this is why I keep asking “what game are you playing?” because I was actually there, when these games were new, and I’m going to say that games that required pixel perfect jumping, had poor design and had poor control or angle mechanics didn’t get played or remembered. Don’t believe me? How often to you hear the “classic NES game” Athena mentioned? Did anyone play Action 52 until the AVGN tackled it? What about Jeckyl and Hyde? I’m sure you’ve all played Milon’s Secret Castle, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th, yes? Nah, it’s always Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Megaman and Castlevania because those were the well designed games that toed the line between fun and frustrating. They got it right despite having their own flaws.

From what I’m hearing and seeing, World 2 isn’t this. I guess if some 20-somethings want some artificial experience of “Nintendo Hard”, then they got it.